WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TILL WE HAVE FACES BY C.S. LEWIS
I read, as part of a book club, C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces. As I read, I was reminded of a very different book I’d read for a book club a couple years before: Rene Girard’s I See Satan Fall Like Lightning. In both of these, I am reminded of grief, the irrational facts of experience, the importance of forgiveness, and a couple mental health practices.
In chapter eight of Till We Have Faces, the narrator-protagonist’s beloved sister, Psyche, is taken as a human sacrifice to her village’s goddess. The narrator-protagonist, Orual, felt tremendous grief, and C.S. Lewis wrote it with incredible precision.
For many days after [Psyche was taken away] I was sick, and most of them I do not remember. I was not in my right mind, and slept (they tell me) not at all. My ravings—what I can recall of them—were a ceaseless torture of tangled diversity, yet also of sameness. Everything changed into something else before you could understand it, yet the new thing always stabbed you in the very same place. One thread ran through all the delusions. Now mark yet again the cruelty of the gods. There is no escape from them into sleep or madness, for they can pursue you into them with dreams. Indeed you are then most at their mercy. The nearest thing we have to a defence against them (but there is no real defence) is to be very wide awake and sober and hard at work, to hear no music, never to look at earth or sky, and (above all) to love no one. And now, finding me heart-shattered for Psyche’s sake, they made it the common burden of all my fantasies that Psyche was my greatest enemy. All my sense of intolerable wrong was directed against her. It was she who hated me; it was on her that I wanted to be revenged. Sometimes she and Redival and I were all children together, and then Psyche and Redival would drive me away and put me out of the game and stand with their arms linked laughing at me. Sometimes I was beautiful and had a lover who looked (absurdly) a little like poor, eunuch’d Tarin or a little like Bardia (I suppose because his was the last man’s face, almost, that I had seen before I fell ill). But on the very threshold of the bridal chamber, or from the very bedside, Psyche, wigged and masked and no bigger than my forearm, would lead him away with one finger. And when they got to the door they would turn round and mock and point at me. But these were the clearest visions. More often it was all confused and dim—Psyche throwing me down high precipices, Psyche (now very like the King, but still Psyche) kicking me and dragging me by the hair, Psyche with a torch or a sword or a whip pursuing me over vast swamps and dark mountains—I running to save my life. But always wrong, hatred, mockery, and my determination to be avenged.
The beginning of my recovery was when the visions ceased and left behind them only a settled sense of some great injury that Psyche had done me, though I could not gather my wits to think what it was. They say I lay for hours saying, “Cruel girl. Cruel Psyche. Her heart is of stone.” And soon I was in my right mind again and knew how I loved her and that she had never willingly done me any wrong, though it hurt me somewhat that she should have found time, at our last meeting of all, talking so little of me, to talk so much about the god of the Mountain, and the King, and the Fox, and Redival, and even Bardia.
Soon after that I was aware of a pleasant noise that had already been going on a long time.
”What is it?” I asked (and was astonished at the weak croak of my voice).
”What is what, child?” said the voice of the Fox; and I knew somehow that he had been sitting by my bed for many hours.
”The noise, Grandfather. Above our heads.”
”That is the rain, dear,” he said. “Give thanks to Zeus for that and for your own recovery. And I—but you must sleep again. And drink this first.” I saw the tears on his face as he gave me the cup.”
Gods or Biases
Isn’t it strange that Orual projected all of her anger, about the victimization of her sister, onto the victim, her sister? Perhaps that strangeness is why humans blamed such things on gods. Perhaps they truly are caused by gods.
These days, we use psychological terms like projection and cognitive bias and splitting to describe Orual’s irrational thoughts and feelings. Whether they’re gods or biases, they’re part of our humanness. It is clear that we are not entirely rational beings. That irrationality can serve a good purpose, but it can also serve evil.
Scapegoats and Sacrifice
The polymath philosopher, Rene Girard, posited that every culture is born out of sacrificial offerings. To put it briefly, human relations become tense when shared resources become limited. That tension builds up until, finally, the group (that seemingly single-minded entity that is a crowd of people) spontaneously chooses a scapegoat. The scapegoat might be an actual goat, or another animal, or it might be a human being. It’s usually something that has blood. The tension that has built up between members of the group is, almost magically, released when murder is committed. That is the function of the scapegoat, to take all of the tension upon itself, releasing it from everyone else in the group.
It’s strange enough that this actually works (it actually resolves terrible societal problems), and that it has been practiced in almost every culture in human history, but to add to the strangeness, the crowd experiences a common hallucination. The scapegoat becomes the scapegoat when the crowd sees them as a monster, or something less-than-human. Then, after the murder or scapegoating occurs, the victim is often venerated as a god or goddess, something more-than-human. Girard claims that every god and goddess was actually, at one point, a sacrificial victim.
That’s exactly what happened in the beginning of Till We Have Faces. Psyche was first seen as beautiful, and people started believing her touch could heal them. But then, a plague came over the land, and people started blaming Psyche’s touch for spreading the plague. The plague, along with famine, generated tension among the people. That tension needed somewhere to go. Psyche, who was seen as more and/or less than human, became the scapegoat.
This strange dance of perceiving a person as a god and then a demon and then a god, and so on, can be seen in individuals as well.
Splitting, Scapegoating, Not Seeing
Orual’s relationship with Psyche mirrored the arc of the villagers. In the beginning, Orual’s love for Psyche was something akin to worship. She said, “I wanted to be a wife so that I could have been her real mother. I wanted to be a boy so that she could be in love with me. I wanted her to be my full sister instead of my half sister. I wanted her to be a slave so that I could set her free and make her rich.”
But, after Psyche was taken away, Orual stopped seeing her as perfectly good and, instead, saw her as a perfect enemy.
In many mental illnesses, like Borderline Personality Disorder and depression, but also in mentally healthy people in situations that are highly stressful or emotional, psychologists have identified a common cognitive bias they call splitting.
Splitting is a useful mental tool, often a defense mechanism. The person who is splitting sees another person or situation as entirely good or entirely bad; entirely one thing or another. They become blind to complex, nuanced realities. They see only gods and demons. In a stressful relationship, for example, one person might see the other as perfect for a while, and then, all of a sudden, they see the other as pure evil.
By seeing someone as only good or only evil, they defend themselves from the uncomfortable, conflicting emotions of a relationship between two flawed human beings.
To put it simply, if I see my ex-girlfriend as a demon rather than a human, it’s easy for me to write her off and not have to look too closely at the painful emotions and experiences around the relationship.
It looks a lot like what Orual was doing in her grief over the loss of Psyche. She couldn’t handle the irrational fact of experience that our dearest loved ones can be taken from us in an instant, so she turned her dearest loved one into an enemy instead. It makes more sense for an enemy to be taken. It’s more bearable that way.
Here, I want to be careful not to vilify splitting, or other cognitive biases. They are never entirely good or evil themselves. Splitting can be extremely beneficial and even necessary. The crazy thing about scapegoating is that it actually works. It actually resolves the weird psychic-plagues that groups of people experience. And in Orual’s case, by splitting, she could shelve certain feelings about the loss of her sister, perhaps so she could work through them slowly or one at a time.
She couldn’t handle loving her sister while she grieved, so she didn’t. But when the time was right, the splitting needed to be seen through. It was good while it served a good purpose, but it ultimately prevented her from seeing with clarity. Like medicine, it treated the problem, but it also had its side effects.
When Orual’s mind began to clear, she became aware of “a pleasant noise that had already been going on a long time.” The sound of rain on the rooftop was a beautiful part of life that she lost because she failed to see the true reality in front of her.
Of course, we each need to come around to these things in our own time. But we must also be aware that, by seeing the world through cognitive biases, like splitting, we remain blind to many good things.
Ultimately, and most tragically, splitting results in seeing another not as they are, a human being, but as something far greater or far less. That’s the only way scapegoating actually works.
If a human sees another human as they are, as a human, then scapegoating and sacrificing cannot be justified because humans are not only incredibly complex and impossible to fully comprehend, but we are also children of God. We have a very particular and special element of consciousness within us. If we are aware that exists in another person, then murder can’t be justified. On the other hand, if we only see a monster or a demon, then murder makes perfect sense.
As long as we fail to acknowledge that not everything in life makes sense, that is, as long as we cling to our cognitive biases to make sense of an often irrational reality, we must murder (even if only symbolically) and commit sacrifices to maintain that fragile notion of a sensible, fair world. There’s a beautiful innocence in the belief that everything can be made sense of, that every question can be answered, but it also reeks of blood.
To be clear, the problem is not in believing that the world can make sense. Perhaps the world does make sense. There’s good evidence to suggest such a thing. The problem is in believing that we can make sense of the world. We are only human. We must live with mystery. If we fail to accept that, then we must offer blood sacrifices in order to uphold the illusion that we can make sense of it all.
While surrendering our cognitive biases, once they’ve served their purpose, is essential for mental health, it is also an essential piece in how we view and treat others.
Inquisitiveness and Mindfulness
That leads me to the final piece of this essay, in which I would like to share two practices that cannot take grief away, but can offer moments of reprieve in the midst of it, can help us to suffer no deeper than is necessary, and can open us to seeing and accepting the humanity in others.
First, going all the way back to chapter one in Till We Have Faces, we see this stoic-like Greek man, the Fox, who mentors Orual and her sisters. The Fox is like a grandfather to the sisters, but he isn’t related to them. In fact, he is a slave, taken in war, taken from his homeland, his community, and his family. He has every reason to be miserable, but he manages to keep his spirits up.
Orual says this about the Fox:
He had all sorts of sayings to cheer himself up with: “No man can be an exile if he remembers that all the world is one city,” and, “Everything is as good or bad as our opinion makes it.” But I think what really kept him cheerful was his inquisitiveness. I never knew such a man for questions. He wanted to know everything about our country and language and ancestors and gods, and even our plants and flowers.
What really kept him cheerful was his inquisitiveness. C.S. Lewis wrote that back in 1956, and psychologists have verified, time and again, that inquisitiveness is essential to mental wellness.
In terms of cognitive biases, like splitting, a mindset of inquisitiveness enables one to ask questions without demanding answers (like why or how a person behaves the way they do) and come to an understanding that a person is rarely purely good or purely evil.
In terms of life, inquisitiveness opens a person up to wonder and experiences of beauty, truth, and goodness. Those experiences nourish our souls. They give us reasons to keep going, to keep seeking.
Long before C.S Lewis wrote Till We Have Faces, Saint Francis of Assisi said, “O Master grant that I may never seek so much…to be understood as to understand…Make me a channel of your peace.”
Perhaps Orual could have used some of the Fox’s inquisitiveness, some of Saint Francis’s seeking, while she was grieving. She might have, at least, treated the spirit of Psyche more fairly if she had sought to understand her instead of labelling her. She might have noticed the rain a little sooner. And she might have found some ease even while she grieved.
But in order to pause her ruminations long enough to be inquisitive, she might have needed a mental breather. The second mental health practice I want to mention is meant to provide that.
Our instinctive minds are at ease when there is no immediate threat to our lives. When we can pull our minds out of our ruminations of the past or the future, we can experience the present moment. Rarely, in any given moment, are we in grave danger, and so by focusing on the present, we can give some ease to our minds.
If Orual could have brought her mind to the sound of the rain, instead of waiting for her mind to stumble upon it, she might have had a moment or two of solace. In those moments, she might have sought understanding, instead of blindly blaming Psyche. A moment of clarity can work wonders.
Yet, I think it was okay that Orual grieved and did not understand. I think she needed that for a while. The tragedy wasn’t that she saw through distorted lenses while she grieved. The tragedy was that she continued to see through distorted lenses long after she’d grieved, after the distortions no longer served a good purpose.
Nonetheless, some reprieve can be found in releasing one’s thoughts of past or future, and grounding oneself in the present. For that, there is a well-documented grounding technique, often called the 5-4-3-2-1 Method, aimed at gaining that same clarity that Orual experienced when she noticed the rain.
The technique reduces anxiety and rumination by grounding the person practicing it in the present moment. It’s very simple. Name five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. By doing that, you anchor your mind in the present moment.
Life doesn’t always make sense, but the present moment usually does. Most of the time, in our culture anyway, the present moment is a safe place. Perhaps by rooting ourselves there, and then taking an inquisitive approach toward life, we can give ourselves, and others, a lifeboat when things get hard.
More than that, perhaps we can surrender old cognitive biases that no longer serve our God-given purpose, biases that not only make our own lives more difficult but might even lead to unnecessarily scapegoating and sacrificing other humans or animals. Maybe then, we can treat our loved ones more fairly.
The Ultimate Scapegoat
Maybe then we can see beyond gods and demons, to the one true God who made himself the ultimate scapegoat, the “pure victim, holy victim, spotless victim” who, rather than requiring a sacrifice, sacrificed himself to atone for all of our tensions and biases and sins.
So often, when we see a flawed person, we label them so that our world makes sense. But humans are too complex to be made sense of. Labeling someone makes us blind to every part of who they are that doesn’t fit that label. This is tragic because humans are always a great deal more than any label other than their name.
“The human being is always unique and unrepeatable, somebody thought of and chosen from eternity, somebody called and identified by his own name.”
Saint John Paul II, Urbi et Orbi, December 25, 1978
Christ points the way beyond labels and splitting and biases. We must see the flaws of others (like their own tendencies to split or label), and we must admit those flaws are not all they are. Those flaws are parts of a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. We must, as Christ did, see those flaws and make the self-sacrifices (sacrificing our comfortable view of a world that always makes sense) necessary to forgive them, to see the whole person beyond them.
“Forgive them, they know not what they do.”
Jesus Christ, after his crucifixion, before his death
